Dinosaurs in Literature, Art & History... Page 66

Mystery of the African (Dogon)Ornithopod Dinosaur?

Antique African bronze dinosaur ”Dogon Tribe African bronze vessel in the form of dinosaur, with the lid, on the lid a seated human figurine, the body of the vessel with linear scarifications, long tail.

Covered in a light earthen patina. Antique African artifact 1800’s AD. This antique African artifact comes with a certificate of authenticity and time period.

All ancient artifacts and antiques, ancient jewelry, ancient statues, etc. are guaranteed to be authentic and from the time period stated.

All artifacts come with a certificate of authenticity and time period. We specialize in antiquities located in our online Treasures of the World gallery at World Wide Store.

Many artifacts are rare and date back as far as 3000 BC. All artifacts are guaranteed to be authentic. Artifacts are one of a kind. If the item you want has already sold we may have something similar available.

Antique African bronze dinosaur

1800’s AD

measures: 14" x 7 1/2" $1200.00”..... Treasures of the World

Around the time Sir Richard Owen had coined the term "dinosaur" to describe the giant "terrible lizards" whose bones were then being discovered in the mid-1800's the Dogon tribe was creating art which appears to represent one of them riding one of those creatures.

Features of the "dinosaur" are accurate enough for a species identification to be made. An Ornithopod dinosaur, in our humble opinion.

The birdlike head with strong jawline, "duck bill"; and the knees appearing to bend in the "wrong" direction (opposite ours) separate this dinosaur from the sauropods.

In actuality the front legs do bend in the opposite direction, but it the high ankles of these creatures which make it appear that the rear legs also bend in the forward direction.

Examples of the Ornithopod dinosaur depicted include; iguanadon and hadrosaurus as shown below. Note also the accuracy of this African depiction compared to early "scientific" depictions.

It's interesting to note that the gallery showing this piece claims that this is dinosaur, from the mid-1800's and that they can authenticate its age and origin. If you've got a spare $1,200, pick it up and send us a photo of the other side of the piece.

UPDATE

When we discovered this artifact online, it had already been purchased by our friend Vance Nelson at CreationTruthMinistries.org. He currently has it in his possession and this new photo is Copyright CreationTruthMinistries.

Looking at the piece again we were struck by how detailed it actually is; the "skin" of the "dinosaur" could also provide evidence that the artist actually saw a living version of the creature at a time scientific depictions of dinosaurs were still "primitive".

Note the diamond shapes that cover the entire creature. Does that feature match up with any modern dinosaur discoveries we wondered; remembering that we thought the artifact represented an Ornithopod dinosaur.

"The hadrosaur skeleton itself — which includes parts of the hip, a femur, part of a foot, and a 10-foot section of tail that is missing its tip — is already an uncommon discovery because it is the most complete dinosaur skeleton, and the first crested hadrosaur, ever discovered in southern Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, says Alan Titus, a BLM paleontologist with the monument. “Geology and paleontology were part of the reason this monument was established,” Titus says.

This specimen is also special because many of the skin impressions were found in direct contact with the bone, so scientists can place with confidence the different scale patterns on particular parts of the dinosaur, Titus adds.

The specimen has two distinct skin patterns, says David Gillette, the dig’s lead scientist and a curator of the Museum of Northern Arizona. A diamond-shaped pattern was found near the tail’s tip, he says, while a more irregular and polygonal pattern was uncovered closer to the hip".

"The expedition brought to the public the testimony of missionary Joseph Ellis who in November of 1971 saw an unusual reptilian animal cross the river in front of him. - Joe was in a 30-foot long dugout motoring his way upstream to Mataba to teach the Bible class to the natives.

At a place in the river that was about 200 feet wide he saw an animal, which he estimated, was 30 feet long (as long as his dugout) cross the river in front of him. The animal had visible diamond shaped objects down the center of its entire length of its body. It was either swimming or walking on the bottom. (The river bottom was an estimated 15 feet deep.) Most of the animal was submerged and not clearly seen out of the water."

The Dogon

Top:Artifact, compared to iguanadon, middle, and hadrosaurus, bottom.

The Dogon are a group of people living in the central plateau region of Mali, south of the Niger bend near the city of Bandiagara in the Mopti region. They number about 800,000.

The Dogon are best known for their mythology, their mask dances, wooden sculpture and their architecture. The past century has seen significant changes in the social organization, material culture and beliefs of the Dogon, partly because Dogon country is one of Mali's major tourist attractions.

Geography and demography

The principal Dogon area is dissected by the Bandiagara Escarpment, a sandstone cliff of up to 500m stretching for about 150km. To the southeast of the cliff, the sandy Séno-Gondo plains are found, and northwest of the cliff are the Bandiagara highlands.

The current population is at least 450,000. Historically, Dogon villages have frequently fallen victim to slave raiders. Neighboring tribal groups acted as slave merchants, as the growth of cities increased the demand for slaves across the region of West Africa.

At the end of the eighteenth century, the jihads that were triggered by the resurgence of Islam caused slaves to be sought for warfare. Dogon insecurity in the face of these historical pressures caused them to locate their villages in defensible positions along the walls of the escarpment.

The other factor influencing their choice of settlement location is water. Nearby is the Niger and in the sandstone rock, a rivulet runs at the foot of the cliff at the lowest point of the area during the wet season.

Dogon Art

Dogon art is primarily wood sculpture, although some pieces are made out of stone or forged from metal. Dogon art serves both an every day and ritualistic function. The carvers who create this art continue the tradition in making the pieces as the mentors who taught them did.

Early scientific dinosaur drawings.

Iguanadon, top left and bottom as imagined today.

The purpose of Dogon art is to preserve the peoples' tradition and not for an individual claim to a piece. Both carvers and especially blacksmiths are important figures in their culture and many myths surround their work and are retold by the Dogon.

Knowledge is passed from the elders to those whose job is going to be making these ritualistic and everyday pieces. Pieces used in rituals are created by the blacksmiths who employ similar techniques when working with metal as when working with wood.

Dogon art revolves around religious values, ideals, and freedoms. Dogon sculptures are not made to be seen publicly, and are commonly hidden from the public eye within the houses of families, sanctuaries, or kept with the Hogon (Laude, 20). The importance of secrecy is due to the symbolic meaning behind the pieces and the process by which they are made.

Signs of other contacts and origins are evident in Dogon art. The Dogon people were not the first inhabitants of the cliffs of Bandiagara. Influence from Tellem art is evident in Dogon art because of its rectilinear designs.

Ornithopod Dinosaurs According to Science

Ornithopods are a group of bird-hipped dinosaurs who started out as small, bipedal running grazers, and grew in size and numbers until they became one of the most successful groups of herbivores in the Cretaceous world, and dominated the North American landscape.

Their major evolutionary advantage was the progressive development of a chewing apparatus that became the most sophisticated ever developed by a reptile, rivaling that of modern mammals like the domestic cow.

They reached their apex in the duck-bills, before they were wiped out by the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event along with all other non-avian dinosaurs. Members are known from all seven continents, although the Antarctic remains are unnamed, and they are generally rare in the Southern Hemisphere.

Ornithopoda means "bird feet", from the Greek ornis ("bird") and pous ("feet"); this refers to their characteristic three-toed feet, although many early forms retained four toes. They were also characterized by having no armor, the development of a horny beak, an elongated pubis that eventually extended past the ilium, and a missing hole in the lower jaw.

The early ornithopods were only about 1 meter (3 feet) long, but probably very fast. They had a stiff tail, like the theropods, to help them balance as they ran on their hind legs. Later ornithopods became more adapted to grazing on all fours; their spines curved, and came to resemble the spines of modern ground-feeders like the bison.

As they became more adapted to eating while bent over, they became semi-quadrupedal; still running on two legs, and comfortable reaching up into trees; but spending most of their time walking or grazing while on all fours.

Later ornithopods became larger, but never rivaled the incredible size of the long-necked, long-tailed sauropods that they partially supplanted; the largest, like the Edmontosaurus and Shantungosaurus, never exceeded 15 meters (50 feet).

Historically, most indeterminate ornithischian bipeds were lumped in as ornithopods. Most have since been reclassified as basal members of quadrupedal taxa like Marginocephalia; and some, like the "bone-headed" pachycephalosaurids, have been given their own taxa…..Wikipedia Blog Comments Here

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